We made sparkly gifts to hang on the wall

PHOTO thanks to Natalie

We decided it was the right time of the year for the kids to start making gifts. This simple and stylish idea required the purchasing of some cheap craft products, that you may already have, and some gluing by the children. I would like to have it hanging on my wall, wouldn't you?

If you don't want to purchase the canvases you could use the same idea to make cards for Christmas or other celebrations.

MATERIALS:
Large circle punch
Small canvases - 1 per child
Gold paper and cardboard with different textures and patterns
Paper glue.

We did a joint floor puzzle

We have these beautiful wooden blocks and children usually pile them up high, making towers and knocking them down.

Today we laid them flat and some of the older children started making them into a flat puzzle. More and more children joined in and some of the parents too.  We ended up with a beautiful creation but the main thing was the co-operation that happened along the way. Here is a great page of co-operative games that you could use at your playgroup.

Thanks to Teodoro for the photo

Healthy food ideas for playgroup

More healthy snack ideas here.

I love:
No. 5: Lebanese bread + avocado + grated cheese and so did the kids.
No. 15: Fruit smoothie + milk + yoghurt + honey + fruit

This is a great handout that you could use as a poster at playgroup or as a handout to all interested families on easy snack ideas for young children.

It is a PDF

These resources are from Healthy Eating at Playgroup developed by playgroup coordinators and staff in conjunction with South East Sydney Area Health and based on The Australian Guide for Healthy Eating

Thanks Vera Kratochvil for the photo.

We re-organized the morning tea box

We have a large clear morning tea box with a lid in the kitchen at playgroup with all our supplies for preparing a healthy morning tea and today we cleaned it out and replenished the supplies.

WHAT WE KEEP IN OUR MORNING TEA BOX:
20 bowls
20 adult cups with lids for tea and coffee:  we use theseas they have different coloured lids for easy identification and reuseable and BPA free
20 plastic cups: reusable
1 chopping board
1 large knife with a knife cover
Teaspoons: metal
Metal tongs for serving food
Large serving plates
1 water jug with lid
2 tea towels

WHAT WE REPLENISH:
Paper towel
Tissues
Tea
Sugar
Coffee
Plastic gloves for preparing food
Plastic bags for rubbish
Yellow sponges for kitchen
Red sponges for craft and toys

We sang multi cultural children's songs

Do you have any songs you sing regularly that are from other cultures? Each term we pick around 12 to 15 songs that we sing regularly so that they all become very familiar and turn into our favourites.
We don't sing them all every week - we sing about 4 and always include one familiar song like "Der Glumph went the little green frog". This term, for our new songs, we have chosen a few multicultural songs. Our favourite so far has been the Native American circle dance:

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the earth

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the Earth

Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly
Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the sky

The next week we made simple feather head dresses to dance with as we circled around holding hands.

See more multicultural songs.

See how we made our headdress.

Borrow or buy our favourite CD of multicultural songs.

Read a multicultural story: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes which has beautiful illustrations of babies from all different nations.

Be one of the first to join in our link up of play ideas

2013


Linking up is simple at Today at Play:

1. Link up your early childhood play idea from 2013 

2. Link up as many ideas as you like

3. Use the "Name" of your idea not your name.

We had a playdough bakery

Playdough is always popular and we are forever trying to find new ways for the kids to explore with it. The great thing about this sensory activity is that most children, and parents, love it and even one year olds enjoy poking their fingers in the colourful dough.
We always make playdough using the uncooked recipe so that sometimes the children can help us.

Today with the colourful playdough we provided:

• Metal cake trays
• Metal muffin trays
• A variety of plastic kitchen containers
• Spatulas
• Wooden rolling pins
• Plastic knives
• Plastic spoons
• Wooden spoons
• A variety of things to decorate the "cakes".
• A shaker of extra flour to sprinkle on top.

See more ideas for playdough activities.